If there are images in this attachment, they will not be displayed. Download the original attachment

During the June and July, 2018 peak months of the northern hemisphere sporadic E season, I alternated between four remote PC DX installations: Florina, Greece, Hong Kong, Daegu, South Korea, and Sussex, UK.

The Florina, Greece tuner benefits from above average Es intensity and distribution at a low latitude listening location towards the equator. The Florina remote tuner produced near-constant forward scatter from eastern European, and Russian television video carriers. The single-hop-Es path to Israel was also near optimal in distance at circa 1,000 miles. Multi-hop Es (nEs) was most productive at Florina. As seen on DXmaps, Japanese, Chinese, and Philippines 6 metre FT8 digital decode QSLs into Florina were relatively frequent.

During June and July, 2018, the OIRT FM band signals were numerous into southern Greece. 66.2 MHz and 68.36 MHz Radio Rossi (17 kW nominal TX ERP) are some of the most commonly received via single-hop Es.

The Florina FM band is jammed out with stations present on nearly every 100 KHz. Mostly Israel, Lebanon, Russia, and eastern Europe were heard.

Greece was the place to be back in the 1960s to 1990s DX TV years. Band 1 would have been saturated with European, African, Middle East, and Russian TV signals. Distant multi-hop sporadic E signals like C1 China, E2 Malaysia, E4 India, E3 Thailand, and A2 Philippines were likely mostly buried under the single hop signals. Es and F2 ionisation generally increases at lower latitudes closer to the equator.

Paul Farley's Sussex Southern UK installation is far more sensitive and directive than any of the Global Tuner network stations. However despite this, low VHF reception results were mainly limited to ocassional "jumper" forward scatter radar from Israel. There are two main reasons for this: subpar European Es season, and monitoring location not sufficiently close to the equator.

One can only speculate at how much exotic DX could be received assuming Paul's large tower mounted rotatable KMA 20-element 25 - 100 MHz log-periodic was used at Florina, Greece!

Far eastern Russian OIRT FM has also been heard on the Daegu, south Korea remote tuner. Chinese, Philippines, Taiwan, and Japanese TV and FM is also well received. 62.25 MHz chE4 Thailand video via 2Es at circa 3600 km noted on a few days. 48.2500 MHz Afghan chE2 video also received.

Taiwan FM via 1500 km Es was often strong into Daegu, South Korea.

DXing on a remote Global tuner is like operating an Icom scanning receiver via software. Frequency display, various tuning steps, AGC, squelch, and AM/FM/USB/wFM modes are adjustable via the PC mouse. or keyboard. Audio from video carriers can be seen on home spectrum analyser software.

The major disadvantage is that these remote tuners feature sub-par antenna gain and directivity compared to large TV/FM DX arrays used back at home. Typically, only a wideband discone, or single wideband dipole is used. However, the superior receiving locations largely compensate for low gain antenna receiving systems.

There were several signals that I did not write down, hence this summary is not 100% complete. Tony Mann and myself heard different DX at various times due to different log-in monitoring sessions.

Todd Emslie

Sydney, AU

___________________________________________________________________

Below is a summary of the 2018 Northern Hemisphere Es season I experienced on Global Tuners. I monitored mostly on Hong Kong, Daegu, Manila, Florina (Greece) and Vero Beach (Florida). I concentrated more on analog TV carriers and radars than FM, for which a spectrum analyser was indispensable.

Daegu, South Korea, which is perhaps the best tuner in Asia, due to its location and freedom from overload on the FM band (SDRPlay) was unavailable for the peak of the season, from late May through 7 July. Although this was a poor Es season in Europe, there were many instances of the Es MUF in Asia reaching at least 80 MHz. On 9 July FM Es was observed for 12 hours. Several times during FM Es openings I detected Chinese TV carriers with sidebands on 168.250 MHz (even one on 168.251) but could not tell if these were aircraft scatter or Es. Hong Kong was more sensitive on 6m (could detect 49.75 via MS) but the restricted frequency coverage of the FT817 receiver and its bad overload on the FM band restricted its usefulness for VHF DXing. Perhaps because the Hong Tuner has a nearby hill to the northwest, I never heard any low VHF signals from Europe and central Asia. Manila at 2480 km was surprisingly good on Band 1 and FM with a loop antenna.

Via multi-Es from Greece, I logged 8000-10000 km Band 1 TV carriers from Thailand (E4), The Philippines (A2), and even the Chinese Hainan Island radar on 38.9 MHz. I originally thought the chE4 carriers were from India, but they were the same two zero offset frequencies as Thailand. 8000 km seemed to be the limit for 6m FT8 European signals into Vero Beach, Florida. 50 MHz 6m 2Es from Hong Kong to northern Japan/southern Russia was fairly common (Japanese 6m beacons and R1 Poronaysk).